Great Regulars: Before healing, though, anger and anguish

demand to be heard. "Bags of Bones," by Dunya Mikhail, from her overlooked collection The War Works Hard (New Directions, 2005), discusses the good fortune of a mother who is blessed with a gift from her son. What luck, she says,

To give your mother back,
On the occasion of death,
The handful of bones
She offered you
On the occasion of birth?

Mikhail's searing sarcasm exposes the true cost of war.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Half of History

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